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Dominions 4 - how about a diplo-heavy game for a change?

Would you sign up in such a game?

  • What game? OP is too long to read.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13

Grimwulf

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There is one persisent idea that has been gnawing me for quite some time. I want to play a game with you, Codex. A very unique Dominions experience, set in LA.

I'm sure most of you will recognize the map.

Map_of_Calradia.jpg

Ideally, I'd like to gather 22 players - one for each of the major Calradian towns. All LA nations, except for R'lyeh. But it won't hurt too much if there will be less players participating.

Players will be divided in six factions from the start - the political map is the same as original Calradia.

ABFD5143F3C87B78273B6FE5A1B2D9DB89FB96D7

Nations and their start positions will be distributed randomly (by dice rolls in the game thread), but each players will start in one of the major towns (Vaegirs, Khergits, Swadians and Sarranides have 4 major towns/start spots each; while both Nords and Rhodocks have three). Players that rolled a capital-of-the-faction start location (Reyvadin for Vaegirs; Praven for Swadia, etc.) automatically become initial rulers of the respective faction. Those who start in their factions are considered to be their vassals.

But this is not a disciple game. Disciples are blind religious followers of a nation ruled by Pretender God. And here we have a case of much more fragile relations. Vassals might betray their rulers; switch sides; or even claim independence and form a new faction.

Some of you might have heard of Kings and Traitors pbem on Desura - yes, there are definitely lots of similiarities. But there will be a modest set of rules, developed by old senile me, that will prevent the course of history from going insta-retard. Like it did int their game, kind of. Your suggestions are also welcome - actually, that's one of the main reasons why I created this thread in the first place. The other reason is, I want to know if this idea even interests anyone.

Some random features that will be present:
- Almost no indie provinces. Everything will be distributed from turn zero. Forts and castles will be pre-built on the same spots as in original Calradia. Thus, there will be no actual expansion period. A few provinces (mostly UW ones) will be indie, though.
- All players will be restricted to human types of Pretenders. I'll give the full list when/if the actual game thread follows. Human = human, literally (no Titans, and of course no monsters, inanimates, etc.).
- Blood hunting is illegal, and a massive offence to the world. It's not RESTRICTED, but it will be reason enough for the whole world to declare war on you. Or for your vassal to turn on you. Discretion is advised. More details later.
- Amount of provinces = amount of villages, castles and towns on Calradia map (still working, will give exact numbers later). Each village, town and castle you see is a province.
- Low magic settings, but not as low as neighboring Grim Antiquity thread. Expect something like 35-40 site generation and difficult research setting.
- No Thrones. Victory condition will be either province victory (claimed ruleship over certain amount of provinces), or Victory Points (if I manage to work some magic in the map script and make VP interesting). The victor doesn't win the game as a nation, but as a faction. After victory condition is achieved, the faction ruler divides the lands, power, wealth and other profits between his vassals and himself.

That's it for now. If you got questions or suggestions - shoot. If not, click on something in the voting poll.
 
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sqeecoo

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Hahahahaha, awesome idea using the M&B map!

I'd definitely be in, but may prefer to wait till Decline 3 is over/quit Decline 9? This seems time-consuming. But since you are the admin I'd assume a slow leisurely pace is likely?

How about trying to avoid the tired old "conquer the world" goal? Perhaps tally scores after, say, 150 turns based on income and dominion (and maybe research?), allowing growing peacefully to be a legitimate strategy and diplomatic expansion to be more valuable? Or add up scores from turn 50, 100, and 150 (or more appropriate turn numbers) to discourage early warmongering as well?

Even more radically, how about disallowing capital conquests? You can siege them to force the player into subjugation to your kingdom, but he retains at least his capitol but is now under a different kingdom flag? It'd be ideal if you could conquer but place the same player in charge, of course. Dunno what we would do about domkilling. Maybe force dom1 at pretender creation?

Maybe these ideas are stupid, just throwing them out there :)
 

Grimwulf

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I'd definitely be in, but may prefer to wait till Decline 3 is over/quit Decline 9? This seems time-consuming. But since you are the admin I'd assume a slow leisurely pace is likely?

It isn't likely to even start this month. And yeah, initial hosting will be 48h per turn. There will be no "easy" or "fast" turns, coz right from the start you don't have any room for expansion, and you have to make your first step by commencing diplo activity.

How about trying to avoid the tired old "conquer the world" goal? Perhaps tally scores after, say, 150 turns based on income and dominion (and maybe research?), allowing growing peacefully to be a legitimate strategy and diplomatic expansion to be more valuable? Or add up scores from turn 50, 100, and 150 (or more appropriate turn numbers) to discourage early warmongering as well?

That's pretty much what I wanted to implement with Victory Points. They were pretty popular in Dominions 3, back in pre-Thrones times. A victory condition that isn't based on military actions.

Even more radically, how about disallowing capital conquests? You can siege them to force the player into subjugation to your kingdom, but he retains at least his capitol but is now under a different kingdom flag? It'd be ideal if you could conquer but place the same player in charge, of course.

Ehrrm, no that will be rather off-course. Sometimes the best way to deal with problem is to kill the problem. But in this game, you won't be able to simply go aggro on anybody you want. To put it short, in order to attack anybody (be it rebellious vassal or neighboring faction) - you want to make sure that nobody minds. That people won't suddenly take the side of your enemy. You need a reason and a cause to attack somebody.
- "He practices eval blood magic, and the world will soon be dominated by this foul bastard of a king. Here is the evidence of his former vassal as a proof. Now let's unite and pwn him!" (SJW approach)
- "This vassal is a treacherous hoe! He was plotting against me with King Harlaus! It is my BIRTHRIGHT to punish this assfucker by depraving him of one of the castles!"
- Another primitive line, etc

Dunno what we would do about domkilling. Maybe force dom1 at pretender creation?

Domkilling won't be a problem with human Pretenders. Unless somebody decides to roll with Dominion 1.

:M

I expect all players to take dom 5, +/-
 

Matalarata

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Lovely idea...unfortunately untill december I'll probably be full of work, so I'll apply with reserve. If someone else needs my place I'll leave it.
 

sqeecoo

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Good points.

Yeah, VPs would be better than thrones for sure. Cumulative maybe? Although not sure how VPs would work with the "win as a faction" rule.
 

Grimwulf

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A mini-update.

After some consideration it became obvious that a game with 22 independent players will go to chaos pretty fast, at least in terms of diplomacy. A manly decision was made to setup a disciple game, after all. Six factions, 3-4 players each.

Victory condition will be accumulating certain amount of victory points. You can read about them in the manual, but here is the short version of the story:

Nations get victory points each turn, if they have certain provinces in possession (those that are scripted to grant points in the map script). The first nation (or team, in case of disciple game) that achieves required amount wins the game. In my particular map each major city wil grant one point per turn. Those cities have big-ass circles around them, and they are also staring positions.

npaiwgrpnr.jpg

Thus it is possible to win the game by warmongering. BUT, since the main goal of the game is diplomacy, I've also included a possibility of "diplomatic victory", if you will.

I introduce you TEH GREAT COUNCIL!

ezfrwdgxuo.jpg

- This province is initially neutral and placed roughly in the center of the map.
- It won't have any defences or recruitable units/commanders.
- It will have a luck-increasing magic site (to minimize risks of indy attacks) and sites that reveal score graphs.
- It will grant the team that holds it 5 victory points per turn.
- All team leaders have to send stealthy commanders (starting scouts will do) to this province in sneak, right from the turn 1 (ambassadors). On turn 10 (mid-Winter) the first ELECTIONS will take place. After that, every 6 turns will be re-elections.

Now we came to the point of what's it all about. During elections, each player posts his vote in the game thread. 1 major city = 1 vote. Whoever wins the elections, becomes the Chairman and takes over the province with the scout (remember, it has no defences - and I will make it zero population too, so that it will be impossible to rectuit PD there). The Chairman nation DOESN'T HAVE TO OBEY to the team-leader, although the victory points are counted for the whole team. But the main point is that Chairman has the right to commence voting polls (or whatever you english speakers call that stuff - gotta check it in political slang vocabulary) on it's own will. Each turn only one voting poll can be declared. You can basically do anything, e.g.:
- Pass castle x to nation y;
- Cease warfare between nations a and b;
- Allow blood hunting;
- Cast/Dispel global;
- etc. (I'll come up with full list of possibilities and restrictions later)

Every nation must comply, but has the right to reject voting results. In case of a nation rejecting them, the whole team is prohibited to participate in next elections. Therefore, coalitions might be created. Bribery will take place. CORRUPTED DISCIPLES will be born!

And that's the short story, men.

Ok, in other news, I'm currently deciding if I want the map to look like it looks naw (appealing and art-sy), or draw borders to help people understand the logistics better.

mpoociwuxd.jpg
sqfkvhjcjv.jpg

I'm not that gud with image editing, truth be told. No matter how hard I try, those borders simply look violating. I'm tempted to leave it as it is. Players will require to mind and plan logistics more carefully.

Random facts:

- Every village is a farmland. Some have terrain features (forest, mt., border mt., fresh water access), but there are no caves on the map.
- Each village has a faction-specific poptype. In land of Swadia it's mostly heavy infantry and heavy cav. Khergits have horse archers everywhere. And so on, details when it's done.
- Nations will be placed thematically (cold nations in the north; hot in the south; western-thematic in the west, and so on). Because I reconsidered. Yeah, I'm an asshole like that.
- Only three UW provinces, not connected between each other. Indy provinces.
- 4 more indy provinces (Training Camps that were in vanilla Calradia of Mount and Blade). Nothing can be recruited there, but each has a War Academy magic site.
- Some factions have better pre-built fortifications (citadels in Swadia), and some have worse (forts in Vaegirs). But some nations will get sweets to compensate (limited pre-built labs and temples).

And that's it for now, methinks. Stay tuned. Or not.

It might not be as fun as I thought.

:negative:
 
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KoolNoodles

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I think we're all hoping to lose Decline3. Nobody cares anymore to dispel Burden of Time, lightning strikes random heathens, somebody keeps wishing for Armageddon(three times now). There's a giant hurricane run amok. At least R'lyeh is gone so none of their mind fuckery can happen.

I'm interested though, of course. I think we'd need just about everyone on here to make it work anyways?
 

Grimwulf

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I think we'd need just about everyone on here to make it work anyways?

I guess. I'm just making dis map in the free time, not really sure if the game itself will ever happen. If people won't be interested, I'll just upload the map somewhere, so that the men of Dominions would do whatever they want with it.
 
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Disciple games are so rigid diplomatically. I'd prefer it without disciples, but still allow people to 'win' the game while being vassal of their liege.
 

Grimwulf

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I'd prefer it without disciples, but still allow people to 'win' the game while being vassal of their liege.

That was my original intention, until I bumped into problems I cannot solve.

1) 18-22 players acting independently is just too much. Especially when it comes to actual diplomacy, voting polls, and other social stuff.

2) Those victory points is not something I can modify. The game engine can either count points for one nation (standard game) or for one team (disciple game). Let's say we make it standard, and a nation-ruler obtains some loyal vassals under his wing. The engine won't add the points of vassals to their liege. In other words, I don't see how can I make "vassal-liege" thing work in non-disciple game.

3) I'll have to change start position. Calradia map has those major cities of each faction placed very close to one another. If those starts will be played in non-disciple game, the sheer amount if issues is just overwhelming. Starting from domspread, and ending with logistics (in order to attack an enemy, the liege will have to conquer lands of his own vassal, destroying PD and causing other invonviniences).

I know that it's almost impossible to properly betray and backstab in disciple game. But the one who seeks, always finds a way.

:troll:
 

Matalarata

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I concour, just selling info from private convos to enemies has HUGE impact in a game such as Dominions. Normally in a disciple game you have no reasons to put your team into disadvantage but if we larp this correctly the potential for butthurt and fun® is huge.
Problem is, we need dedicated leaders with time to spare to coordinate strategy/RP. If the amount of interest is asymmetrical one or more team will lag behind, someone will get pissed off and kill the game with a meh instead of the WTF! we all hope for.
Imho we should also have each player come up with some backstory detailing the recent history of his nation/coalition from his/xir perspective. Just 5 lines or so, but that would add to the immershun mood and also filter out those with little interest in the game's diplomatic aspect. The idea is, if the game is a free for all valetudo arena, where backstabbing and intrigue are not only possible but encouraged, I'd like said actions to have meaning from a game-history perspective, not to be randomly chosen with no thoughts given.
A loyal servant, playing a lawful and orderly civ under a benevolent ruler shouldn't just backstab for-teh-lulz but can be coerced or come out with an interesting Rp reason to do so, you could also play as a rebellious vassal, known for being unreliable from the beginning, but at least everyone should know more or less what to expect from you (or not?).
 
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Just use victory points as votes in the election for the supreme leader and declare winner in the forum thread.

Start positions might be a bigger problem, but you have over three months to fix them!
 

Grimwulf

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a benevolent ruler shouldn't just backstab for-teh-lulz but can be coerced or come out with an interesting Rp reason to do so

I'm afraid that rp-only reasons are not reasons enough for a treacher creative mind. But you can find ways and profits of betrayal.

Let's say that you and two other nations play under a tyrant ruler raw. You all hate him, his strategies, his besrerker temper. Basically, you and other vassals want him dead. So you make a plot among yourselves, and decide that you, Matalarata, will be a far better ruler. Then you wait until raw goes to war with another team. When the moment is right, all vassal nations SUDDENLY withdraw your armies and let another team beat raw into the ground. Then you thank them, pay some sort of compensation (that you were supposed to agree on before), and reclaim RAW TERRITORIES for yourselves. Then you, Matalarata, become the new liege.

It's nearly pointless in standard disciple game, because provinces are almost always more important than any tribute you can pay to another team. But in this particular one, you win by obtaining victory points. The fastest way for victory is through elections. To win elections, you need favors. So it kinda make sense to organize those orange revolutions.

Another question is "wtf is the difference between liege and vassal gameplay-wise"? WiP MEN, STAY TUNED Ok, those ideas are really not polished yet. The point is, the liege makes edicts for all his vassals, and all edicts in this game are binding. Laws, taxes, regulations, penances - whatever he desires, with just a bunch of restrictions. Details later You know what, I'm actually open for suggestions. I want this game to be fun for players, not only for myself.

Just use victory points as votes in the election for the supreme leader and declare winner in the forum thread.

That's one way to do it, I suppose. Still have other micro-issues, though.

Start positions might be a bigger problem, but you have over three months to fix them!

Even if I solve that micro-issue somehow, do you honestly believe that 22 players can play this in non-disciple fashion without shit going to chaos from the start?
 

mondblut

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Imho we should also have each player come up with some backstory detailing the recent history of his nation/coalition from his/xir perspective. Just 5 lines or so, but that would add to the immershun mood and also filter out those with little interest in the game's diplomatic aspect. The idea is, if the game is a free for all valetudo arena, where backstabbing and intrigue are not only possible but encouraged, I'd like said actions to have meaning from a game-history perspective, not to be randomly chosen with no thoughts given.
A loyal servant, playing a lawful and orderly civ under a benevolent ruler shouldn't just backstab for-teh-lulz but can be coerced or come out with an interesting Rp reason to do so, you could also play as a rebellious vassal, known for being unreliable from the beginning, but at least everyone should know more or less what to expect from you (or not?).

oh please, not the fucking larping. diplomacy game with backstabbing is a-ok, speaking in thees and thous and making up some bullshit is not. :roll:
 

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